Baronesses Arlene Foster and Margaret Ritchie react to children chanting 'up the Ra'
Arlene Foster has said that the emergence of more pro-IRA chanting, this time from children, is “incredibly sad”.
The former DUP leader, whose father was shot by the IRA at their family home in Fermanagh, said the group “committed some of the worst atrocities known to man”.
The SDLP likwise condemned the chanting by the children in Dublin, as did its former leader Margaret Ritchie.
“It’s incredibly sad,” said Baroness Foster, who now sits in the House of Lords without any party affiliation.
"I'm sure other victims will feel the same way – people who have suffered at the hands of the IRA will look and say that's just horrific.
"The IRA are just a murderous bunch of terrorists. That's the horrific nature of it all: that young kids would be chanting about them in that way.
"People try to normalise what the IRA did and of course Sinn Fein always continue to justify it which doesn't help with any of this either.”
Fellow House of Lords member Baroness Ritchie (who led the SDLP in 2010/11 and now sits under the Labour umbrella in Parliament) said such chanting should be “stamped out”.
"All that can do is bring back memories to people of what's happened in the past,” she said.
"We must not detract from the wonderful victory of those from the island of Ireland in the Olympics whether they werre in Team Ireland or part of the UK team.
"Broader nationalism always rejected the actions of paramilitaries, including the IRA. That was wrong in every sense of the word… [it was] deeply offensive, wrong, and it has to stop.”
Referring to footage which has also surfaced of the infamous anti-Catholic song “the Billy Boys” being played at the Coleraine FC clubhouse, she said: “And that also applies to the Billy Boys as well. You can't say one is wrong and the other is right. They're both wrong.”
Meanwhile the SDLP said in a statement: “It’s deeply worrying that children are picking up old attitudes.
"The arrest of young children for rioting in Belfast, the involvement in scenes of disorder in Derry and depressing chants in Dublin prove the scale of work we all have to do to change this society for the better.
“That work should be a uniting goal for every party.”